


Elvis with some James Dean in his eyes (he calls me moonlight)

by LittleHandGrenade



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Drug Use, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, I don't know what the fuck happened, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, This was supossed to be a comedy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-12 13:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleHandGrenade/pseuds/LittleHandGrenade
Summary: “You” says Mimi, a smile spreading on her lips.“Me?” asks the guy and then the weight of the last moments seems to land on him, his eyes focusing intently on her “You!” he says, and his smile is the most beautiful thing Mimi has ever seen.“Me” she agrees.It’s not exactly romantic or poetic, yet Mimi thinks, it still feels perfect.Or the one where people have the first words their soulmate would say to them tattooed on their skin and things are usually not what they seem when you're Roger and Mimi.





	Elvis with some James Dean in his eyes (he calls me moonlight)

**Author's Note:**

> For the first prompt of the 2k17 summer fanfiction challenge with my baby BadGirlRunningWild: A soulmate!AU ft. Rent.
> 
> When the original idea came to my mind it was supposed to be a comedy but because I'm a little emo somehow it turned into this. It has a happy ending tho 'cuz I might be a little emo bitch but I'm not a heartless one.
> 
> Important: I did this without a Beta (where do you get one of those anyway?) and English isn't my mother language so... It's up to you if you decide to continue and read it anyway.

Roger Davis would never admit it, but he awaits for his sixteenth birthday awake, watching the bright green numbers of the clock on his bedside table expectantly.

_23:57_

_23:58_

_23:59_

He feels his heart beating faster, his breathing getting caught on his throat even if he tries to persuade himself that he doesn’t care for the outcome.

“ _The whole soulmates thing is bullshit anyway_ ” Mark told him after he turned sixteen a few months ago just to discover he didn’t had any first words permanently engraved on his skin. He had heard about it, people who don’t have a soulmate, but he had never met one until then. Mark said he didn’t care -not too much, that he still had his art to focus on, that film making was his one true passion in life and he didn’t want distractions. Still, Roger has noticed the way people treat him when they realize, the sadness in their eyes, the way they pity him and treat him like something fragile that could get easily broken. He sees too the way sometimes Mark’s gaze lingers a second too long on a couple’s mark, in their intertwined hands as they walk together, in the way they laugh at whispered secrets in each other’s ears. He wonders how it feels like, to know there’s no one out there, no perfect match waiting for you to feel complete.

He thinks about what he will do if in a couple of seconds nothing happens, if he -like Mark- doesn’t have a soulmate mark either.

He tries to convince himself it wouldn’t matter, that his one and only true love is his old second-hand guitar that his father bought him on a yard sale when he was twelve but he knows that’s a lie. Even if he denies it, he has thought about it since he was a kid, listening to all the great love songs that have been written, the ones who tell the stories about how a couple meet, the ones who are named after somebody’s soulmate or for the first words that got out of their lips when they first met. He more often than not thinks about the one’s he’ll write when his time comes.

_00:00_

He jolts out of bed and almost falls down as he tries to stand up, the skin on the left side of his torso right over his ribs pricking with a warm itch. He fights in the darkness to try and find the switch of the lamp, smacking down to the floor the now forgotten alarm clock. He takes off his shirt with a fast movement, his eyes fixing over the messily scrabbled words.

“ _Fuck, I’m going to die.”_

He watches the phrase in complete silence for what feels like an eternity as if trying to make it change under his gaze but no matter how much he focuses, the words remain the same, a promise, a death sentence that hasn’t been spoken yet but already feels so real, so damning, a pressure that has settled over his chest and refuses to go away.  He lays down on his bed again, the only sound in the room the one of his breathing and occasionally a honk from a car passing by on the street.

He doesn’t get any sleep that night, the words engraved on his skin burning like fire inside his brain too.

 

 

Mimi Marquez constantly thinks about soulmates. It’s not unusual to find her daydreaming, too many stories of princesses and princes, happily ever after’s mixing with each other inside her head to create her own fairytale, her own knight in shining armor ready to save her from distress.  

She spends the day before her sixteenth birthday anxiously bouncing, counting down the seconds ‘till midnight, wondering what the mysterious first words of his soulmate would be. Would they’ll be romantic, poetic even? Or maybe they’ll be smooth or funny? She’s seen people who have the most utterly ridiculous things written in their skins, and yet they show them with a sense of pride, of tenderness… She’s sure she’ll do it too, after all, whatever those words are the meaning will remain the same: It’ll be the thing that’s gonna pull her to the person she’s supposed to be her other half, the missing piece on the puzzle of her heart.

She tells so to her mother and she smiles at Mimi, but it doesn’t quite catch her eyes.

It’s the same every time they talk about soulmates but Mimi has learned not to ask about it nor about the way mamma always makes sure her mark is covered.  

She falls asleep before the clock can hit midnight and wakes up a little past two A.M feeling disoriented. It’s when she feels a little itch in her skin right under where her heart is that she remembers and stands up, screaming of happiness as she starts to undress -movements sloppy with sleep. Her mother arrives to her room looking startled and then shakes her head when she realizes what the cause to all the scandal is.

“Turn the volume down a little Meem’, you’ll wake up the neighbors”.

She tries to turn down her excitement –quite unsuccessfully- and she can see her mother smiling on the door frame.

The writing is sloppy and more than a little untidy so it takes her a moment to decipher whatever it says, but when she does her smile widens.

“ _Don't move, you have moonlight in your hair._ ”

It takes her a while to get back to sleep again, even if her mother reminds her tomorrow she has to be up early for school, her head running a mile a minute imagining all the possibilities that hide behind those eight words. When she’s finally able to close her eyes the moon is high in the sky, the pale moonlight softly caressing all it touches.

Even while she's asleep, Mimi smiles.

 

 

Roger decides to leave college after his first year and moves to New York at nineteen. He carries with him only his old leather jacket, his guitar and of course a very dazzled Mark who keeps pointing at this and that, first with his finger and then with his camera as they walk by. It’s been three years since he got his soulmate mark and he has tried not to think too much about it. The success of his effort is debatable. It’s always hard not to remember it, especially while meeting new people, that’s when he’s always expecting the worst, waiting for those words to drop from someone’s lips.

“Maybe it’s just a joke” Mark told him the next day when Roger showed him, just like his mother had done in the morning while he was taking breakfast “I mean, it could be just a random expression they don’t have to be dying for real.”

On his best days, he tries to think about it that way. He could be getting worked up about it for nothing but then again, they all know some story from a guy, the friend of a friend, the cousin of the woman who lives next door, someone who got to meet their soulmate just to realize their famous first words were also their last.

He thinks a lot about that possibility, but never says it out loud.

 

 

When Mimi is seventeen her mother gets a boyfriend, a small man with broad shoulders and wild dark hair, small brown eyes that seem to be more often than not hovering over her and a smile that makes Mimi feel uneasy every time it is directed to her. But mom looks happy when she’s with him so she lets it go.

That is until one night, when Mimi is sleeping just to wake up to the creaking of her door while it opens.

Mamma’s boyfriend moved in a couple of weeks ago –“ _Don’t you think is a little hurried_?” Mimi had asked, after all, they have been dating for barely three months- an since day one there’s been this weird atmosphere every time he’s alone in a room with her, but she couldn’t place what it was, not ‘till now when she feels the mattress sink under his weight, one of his hands sliding under the covers and over her right thigh. She opens her mouth to scream but before any sound can get out he covers her lips with his hand muffling any attempts of screaming. She tries to bite, to punch and to kick, but it’s all in vain. He’s straddling her, his weight pinning her to the bed, his free hand touching every inch of Mimi’s skin. She does the only thing left to do: She cries.

Outside the door, she can hear her mom calling, but she never enters the room.

Next morning she doesn’t meet Mimi’s eyes, neither does three days later, when Mimi announces she’s leaving.

Mimi tells herself its better this way.  

 

 

On their first year in New York, Roger gets to know a lot of awesome people, but he’s sure the best ones are his roommates. Apart from Mark –of course, because there’s no Roger Davis if there’s not a Mark Cohen somewhere close-, there’s also Benny who is studying architecture and works as an intern in an important construction firm. He’s nice if maybe too serious sometimes. He also has a really hilarious soulmate mark, something related to an akita called Evita –Roger doesn’t remember very well what it says, but he remembers his stomach hurting for a week after Benny showed them and he and Mark laughed until they cried.

“Holy shit, this definitely makes me feel better about not having a mark” Mark had said in between laughter without flinching. New York might be doing him some good after all.

There’s also Collins, who like Roger is a university drop-out and currently works part time in a library and part time repairing computers.

“Honestly, this people could save a shit ton of dollars in reparations if they just stopped downloading porn” he mutters once in a while, rolling his eyes but with a wide smile plastered on his lips “Then again, it helps me pay rent so… God bless their freaky porn.”

Collins is funny and brilliant and always has a witty comeback on the tip of his tongue. His soulmate mark is on his right forearm and it reads in an elegant and delicate  handwriting ‘Well, you got me there honey, that’s actually my name.” He hasn’t meet his soulmate yet and he says he’s in no hurry, but he can also be found usually smiling at the words, not minding if anyone is watching him or not. Roger finds it endearing, even if he would never tell him so, and wishes he could do the same with his own mark.

And then there’s Maureen, who is all loud ideas and an even louder voice all enveloped in dark curls, red lipstick and curves that could kill any man –or woman, according to some of her stories. She thinks the soulmates mark thing is bullshit –and maybe Mark fell a little bit in love with her when she said it. No one, not destiny or whatever crap it is will tell her who she is supposed to love, and as if to prove it her pale skin is all covered in tattoos she has gotten over the years, dozens of first words she has been told for people she has dated, one night stands or even random strangers at the street. She says at this point she doesn’t even remember which one is her real soulmate mark but it’s okay because she doesn’t care.

Roger still can see the way she sometimes caresses the one in neat calligraphy that seats under her collarbones when she thinks nobody is watching. But he never says anything about it, not even when she starts dating Mark.  

 

 

By the time she’s eighteen, Mimi has heard a lot of first words from men. They’re mostly the same: You’re beautiful, hey gorgeous move that little thing for me, I could give you more money if you came home with me. They’re always disgusting and make her feel dirty but it helps her put some food on her table and a roof over her head, so she keeps quiet and keeps dancing under the flashing lights of the old dancing club at L.A’s downtown.

She tries not to think about the messy words written over her ribcage, a piece of poetry and beauty that somehow seems incompatible with who she is, her sixteen year old dreams looking like something from a far apart time. Sometimes while she’s on the scenario dancing, clad in a small leather suit that barely covers what’s necessary she tries to listen over the music to see if she can distinguish those words she has been expecting to hear for what seem like ages. It never happens and some nights she gets home angry and frustrated, smashing the few things she has until she breaks something out of anger. Most of the time though, she feels relieved.

It means her soulmate is somewhere else, hopefully far from here.

It means somewhere, something better awaits for her.

 

 

The day September arrives so does April. April is beautiful, dark short blonde hair with some locks died in dark red and some others in vibrant orange. She has a silky voice and a loud laughter that makes the earth and Roger’s knees shake. She’s beautiful, like a force of nature and that’s the first thing Roger tells her when he finally manages to get enough courage –with the help of a couple of beers- to go and talk to her. That’s also the first time he hears her laugh and in that second he knows he’s completely and utterly gone for her.

“A poetry kind of guy, aren’t ya?” she asks arching an eyebrow but he can tell she’s fighting back a smile. He doesn’t know if he should feel disappointed or not that the first thing she says to him doesn’t match at all the tattoo scribbled on his skin. She takes a hint of her cigarette waiting for him to say something, but after seeing he seems lost, she adds “Wish I had that permanently written on my skin instead of that shitty mark of mine.”

“What does it say?” he asks, feeling curious. She smiles, a feline type of smile that gives him goose bumps of the good kind.

“I can show you if you want” April says as she stands up “But since I would have to take off my clothes I would prefer if we did it somewhere more… private.”

Roger licks his lips, his mouth feeling suddenly dry as he watches her walking to the backdoor of the bar. He’s supposed to be playing a gig on the main scenario in a couple of minutes and he’s thinking about the pro’s and con’s of following her when she turns to look at him, muttering a silent “Are you coming or…?”

As she gets on her knees in the back alley, unbuttoning his jeans only with her mouth- Roger decides he’ll follow her down to hell if he had to.

 

 

Mimi meets her downstairs neighbor a late night when she comes back from work. There was this guy who was particularly insistent during her shift, enough to get thrown out of the club after he ignored the third warning of the security guys of not touching the dancers. She had forgotten about it until she realized someone was following her. She walks faster, trying to avoid the dark corners and especially lonely streets as she does so. She can see her building and she prays to whoever is listening to her to allow her to get safe and sound to her apartment.

She freezes the moment she feels someone grabbing her by the arm, images of that night with her mother’s boyfriend replaying over and over on her head. She screams but it comes out like a weak whimper and she feels the rough texture of the wall against her skin as the man shoves her against it. She closes her eyes, trying not to think, trying not to feel, when she hears it.

“What the fuck you think you’re doing?”

The man mutters something that sounds like “Go fuck yourself, faggot” and suddenly Mimi can feel how his hands stop holding her against the wall, the sound of something hitting against the street’s concrete floor making her snap her eyes wide open. The man is lying on the floor, groaning in pain and in front of him with his fist still up is a guy, dressed in a tight brilliant pink dress and silver high heels, a long blonde wig hanging on his other hand. His hair is really short, and he has sharp cheek bones that look even sharper with his makeup. He looks at the guy on the floor with a disgusted grimace plastered on his beautiful features.

“Come close to her again and I’ll show you what this _faggot_ can do,” he says snapping his fingers and then proceeds to take Mimi by the hand. She allows him to guide her inside the building, and sits in the stairs as he indicates her, still trying to understand what just happened, what could have happened…

“Are you okay sweetheart?” the guy asks, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Mimi tries to nod, but she’s not sure if she does so or it only happens in her mind “It’s okay dear, take your time.”

She’s not sure of how long they stay sitting on the old creaky stairs, but when she finally starts feeling more like herself she realizes how tired she is.

“Thanks” she finally says, not sure what exactly she’s thanking him for.

“Don’t even mention it” he answers as he smiles to her.

“I’m Mimi” she introduces herself, extending her hand in his direction. His smile widens as he shakes it.

“Angel.”

 _How fitting_ , she thinks and offers him a weak smile in return.  

 

 

Roger doesn’t understand it at first. He’s not even the one who answers his phone, too busy, too high on his self-induced heroine cloud of happiness and ecstasy to give a damn about what’s happening around him in the real life. It’s only after Mark makes him sit up on his bed, Roger’s eyes trying to focus on the other man’s eyes that he stars to realize something’s wrong.

“I need you to listen and I need you to stay calm” Mark says and Roger feels himself quickly sobering up at those words. He hates it.

“What’s… what’s wrong? What happened? What…?”

“Roger!” His name comes out of Mark’s lips almost like a scream, startling Roger and helping him realize how quickly he’s breathing, how his heart is hammering inside his chest as if trying to come out of it. He takes a few deep breaths before looking back at Mark.

“It was a call from the hospital, they said…” he stops, biting his lower lip and looking to the ceiling as if trying to find the words he’s missing. Roger feels himself starting to get anxious “They found April’s body this morning, she… She’s dead.”

He feels something horrible creeping over his throat, and he shivers. He feels like he’s about to throw up and yet all that comes out from his mouth is a loud laugh.

“I don’t understand” he says and keeps laughing.

Mark gives him a concerned look and for a moment he looks torn apart between staying and going outside to look for someone else who can help him explain better. Roger’s laughter becomes more erratic until it turns into sobs and Mark sits beside him, trying to hold him together.

“Roger, please, I need you to breathe.”

He tries but he doesn’t seem capable to stop, to control it, so he keeps laughing or crying, maybe both until he feels like he can’t get enough air and starts gasping desperately. He listens to Mark's cry for help, and that’s the last thing he remembers before passing out.

 

 

New Year finds Mimi on the streets of L.A, her right arm intertwined with Angel’s left one as they both sway while trying to make their way back to their apartment. They live together now, Angel’s idea, and Mimi hasn’t been this happy in a very long time. Still, there’s something that’s still missing. She thinks of tonight, of the guy she kissed at the party earlier after the countdown to welcome the New Year and the first words he whispered in her ear: Let’s go back to my place. She wished those were the first words she had written in her body, forever a part of her wherever she goes. It would make thing easier, at least.

“I’m tired of these people” she whispers –or so she thinks she does since it comes out more like a scream in the middle of the busy street- to Angel, who looks at her with curiosity written all over her face “I’m tired of this place, let’s go away.”

Angel smiles, taking a drag of the cigarette Mimi’s holding with her left hand as she seems to be thinking of something.

“Have you ever been to New York?” she finally asks, the smile still plastered all over her dark red lips. Mimi shakes her head “I’ve always wanted to visit New York, we should try it.”

Mimi tilts her head, resting it over Angel’s skinny shoulders as she considers it. They won’t know anyone but they’ll be together and even if they’re practically broke, staying here wouldn’t make much of a difference on that matter, would it?

“To New York!” she says, rising up her cigarette. By her side, Angel laughs and in the sky, the moon seems to shine brighter.

 

 

Benny gets married in February on a beautiful yet very private ceremony attended only by family and a couple of close friends. They give great champagne and a delicious red velvet cake, or so Mark tells Roger since he doesn’t go to the wedding. He doesn’t do a lot of stuff lately, staying inside his room most of the time, his guitar forgotten over a dusty corner in the living room. Nobody says anything about it, not even when he hasn’t given them his part of the rent on the last three months.

He’s not sure if that makes it better or worse.  

He doesn’t care, most of the time he’s too high to give a fuck and the rare occasion’s he’s not he just feels numb though it doesn’t last long enough to enjoy it, throwing him back to the needles and the powder, a vicious circle he's unable to leave -that he doesn't want nor tries to escape either. When he’s sober he thinks of April. Of the good times, yes, but specially the bad disguised as good ones; of all the times she said how easy it would be, to jump in front of a car or into the subway rails, to slice her wrists and watch the life bleed out of her and he just laughed, because again, he was just too high to care, to think it was something more than the drugs speaking for her. He wishes he had listened.

He also thinks about the hospital, how he woke up to find Mark and Maureen’s worried faces, the sensation of something hollow on his chest. He doesn’t remember much about that night, but the small bites he’s able to think of are enough to make him feel sick again. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t, everything feeling so distant for the effect of the medicines. Is this what life is like, he wonders, just a succession of moments he will try to forget with the help of pills and chemicals? This is everything that’s in store for him?

“ _Fuck, I’m going to die.”_

He looks to those words in the mirror one night, his head clouded with heroine and god knows what else and he decides he has to get rid of them, of what they represent. That death sentence he carries with him everywhere he goes, that he throws into everything he touches. He remembers April’s always distant eyes, the way her smile used to curve into a sad line and wonders if those weren’t her first words after all, the words she was silently screaming and he was too deaf to hear until now.    

That’s how Collins finds him, sitting on the kitchen table in company of different cleaning products, every part of him focused on trying to get those terrible and damming words out of his body. The skin over his ribcage is raw and starting to bleed after hours of rubbing at it with a sponge but again, he’s doesn’t find it in himself to care about it. He doesn’t fight when Collins stops him, throwing everything to the floor to make a space and sit next to him. They both stay there in silence for a while.

“We’re here for you, you know right?” he asks and Roger nods before he starts to cry.

“It’s okay” Collins says, hugging him, an arm tossed across the blonde’s shoulders “Everything would be okay.”

Roger tries to hold on to that.

 

 

New York is not that different from L.A or so Mimi thinks. There’s a lot of people everywhere you look, neon lights that light up the city at night and a traffic jam on every corner; the only noticeable difference –apart from the weather, is that there are less possibilities to meet face to face with somebody famous. She likes it anyway. There’s something in the air that feels thrilling since the moment she and Angel step out of the bus and Mimi has to close her eyes and take a deep breath.

This is home, she thinks, it has to be.

 

 

“Surprise!” Roger startles as the door of the apartment opens and he immediately finds himself caught in a tight hug courtesy of a very excited Maureen. He laughs, hugging her back and by his side, Mark rolls his eyes. They’re not together anymore, Mark told him on the way back home while helping him catch up with everything that happened the 90 days he was away at the rehab center.

“She found the one” Mark said, his jaw tensing. Roger didn’t press him for further information on that subject, but he heard the low whisper that escaped his lips “Soulmates are _bullshit_.”

“Hey, look who’s back!” he hears the loud voice of Collins from inside the apartment and he smiles in his direction. Collins is standing up in the living room and next to him, sitting in the old couch is a woman, dark skin and dark hair styled in an afro. She’s wearing a dark blue blazer and a white shirt, not a single wrinkle to be seen in her clothes. Roger can’t help but think she looks a little out of place in their messy apartment. Mark sighs before getting inside and Roger feels safe to assume she’s the infamous Maureen’s soulmate.

It gets confirmed a couple of seconds later as Maureen pulls him inside, still too excited for someone who is reuniting back with her ex-junkie friend “You have to meet Joanne, I can’t believe you’ve been here five minutes and I haven’t introduced you to her yet, isn’t she beautiful?”

Joanne, that’s her name, blushes slightly and rolls her eyes but she’s smiling fondly at Maureen. Roger smiles too as he shakes her hand and takes a look at Mark out of the corner of his eye. The blonde seems to be busy trying to make the television display something properly instead of the interference they always get, his back turned to them. Maureen sighs and Roger softly nudges her as if trying to say ‘don’t worry, he’ll come around eventually’. She seems to get the message, turning her attention back to Roger and Joanne.

When Mark called to tell him he would be picking him up at the end of his rehab program, he was scared, afraid of things having changed too much, of him having changed too much to fit back on their lives. After all, he was broken, a damaged piece that they had tried to fix at rehab but even if he was back together again –or the closest to that he could get, he was still not the same, holding up with glue and band-aids, a war scar displaying on his chest where the words can still be read if maybe a little blurred with the scars over his chemically burned skin. He feels like a weight is lifted up from his shoulders that night, while they sit in the living room eating cheap pizza and beer, laughing at a movie that’s on TV.

Benny appears at some point but doesn’t stay long, he has a real work now and a nice home with a wife, a dog and a picket fence to get back too. He pats Roger in the shoulder as he says his goodbyes.

“Is good to have you back.”

 

 

 

Mimi is getting ready for her turn at the main stage – “Dancing is the only thing I’m good enough to get paid for” she told Angel when she asked her if one of the main reasons why they had moved wasn’t her trying to make a turn into her life, to get away for the dance floors and the gross men and the harassing words they threw at her.

“Human beings are creatures of habits after all” she added, a quote she had heard somewhere on a movie.

She puts on some lipstick and takes a bottle of glitter from someone else’s table –they won’t miss it, and it certainly would look better on her anyway, when the door from the backstage opens and Angel enters at full speed, clashing against other dancers who are on their way out. Mimi’s first instinct is to panic but then she looks at the wide smile that seems to light up Angel’s features and tilts her head in confusion.

“Something happened?” she asks, turning back to the mirror to finish her makeup “I have to be out in five, so…”

“I met him” Angel says and over the loud sound of the drunks and the music outside it takes Mimi a moment to understand those words and what they mean. She meets Angel’s eyes trough the mirror before turning back to face him with a happy with incredulous grimace.

“You mean…?”

“Oh yeah, baby” he says, and he looks at the verge of crying. Happy tears. God, Mimi is so happy for him.

She can recall the time Angel showed her his tattoo, a couple of days before they meet when they both were having coffee at Angel’s kitchen. The handwriting was the worst thing Mimi had ever seen, a mess of lines that seemed to come out in all directions. She must have looked terrified for the way Angel started laughing.

“It’s okay honey, take your time” she had said, playing with a dark brown curl of the wig she was wearing that morning “God knows it took me a while to decipher it myself.”

She stared at it for what felt like hours until the scribbled lines started to make some sort of sense. Mimi smiled “Are you an Angel?” she read out loud and next to her Angel scoffed.

“I mean, I get where they get the idea from” she said, winking at Mimi, long eyelashes caressing her cheek “But honestly, could it be more unoriginal?”

The lack of originality of the phrase doesn’t seem to bother him now as he bounces of the balls of his feet eagerly, holding Mimi’s hands between his a little too tight.  

“So, I was getting back from the audition I told you, the one at the bar? Anyway, so I was back on my way to the apartment when I hear a groan in the alley next to the tattoo parlor and I thought maybe it’s a dog or something so I go check and next to the dumpster is a guy, broad shoulders, tall, beautiful eyes…” Mimi coughs, hurrying him to finish. She can hear the DJ announcing the dancing number and she really should be getting on the stage right now “Right, so he’s pretty beat up and a I go see if there’s some way I can help and as I kneel in front of him to check how bad his injuries are he asks ‘ _are you an Angel_?’ and jeez, Meem’s I just… I can’t… I think I sort of lost it at that moment and started laughing so hard, I told him something like ‘well honey, that’s my name’ or so I think, I can’t remember what my words were, I guess I don’t have to since he has them written on his arm and holy shit, he’s my soulmate Mimi! I found him!”

Mimi laughs and hugs him a little hurriedly.

“I’m really happy for you Angel, you deserve it.”

There must be something in the way she says it since Angel holds her by the arm while she attempts to run out to the dance floor.

“You’ll find your one soon, I know it” he says trying to make the smile that lights up her lips light her brown eyes too. Mimi just shrugs.

It’s been a while since she stopped hoping for it and she would prefer not to start doing it again now anytime soon.

 

 

“Roger! You won’t believe what just… What the hell is that?” Mark voice greets him as he opens the door and Roger’s eyes look first into the living room, where Collins seems to be way too animated while telling something to an attentive Joanne and an equally happy Maureen. His eyes follow next Mark’s sight that seems to be fixed on the half of a plastic bottle covered with a dirty piece of cardboard that Roger is holding in his hands.

Oh, _that_.

“It’s Moonlight” he says, smirking at Mark’s terrified expression “It’s our new pet.”

“Over my dead body” is the answer he gets. He rolls his eyes and is about to close the door but Mark stops him… or attempts to do so, since he refuses to stand anywhere close to him and the beautiful specimen of a redknee tarantula he has on his hands “I’m serious Roger, don’t take any step further, that goddamn thing is not staying under the same roof as me.”

“C’mon Mark, look at it, it’s harmless” he says, extending it in his direction. Mark lets out a loud cry –and at least has the decency to look mortified for it “Some kids at the street where throwing rocks at her, I couldn’t just leave it there, she’s probably lost and scared.”

“Oh, of course, nothing safer than a freakin’ scared big-ass tarantula” the blonde retorts, rolling his eyes “Here, why don’t we also let it eat my head off!”

“Who’s going to eat Mark’s what?” asks Maureen turning to look at them with a raised eyebrow. Both Mark and Joanne snort and Roger laughs. They’ve been getting along, Mark and Maureen. He and Joanne still seem to be walking on thin ice when it comes to each other, but they probably have in common more than they would ever admit. For example, they’re both terrifying when playing Monopoly.

Collins leaves his spot on the loveseat to come closer and behind him, keeping a safe distance is Joanne.

“Oh, cool!” he says, lowering himself down to be on eye-to-eye level with the spider so he can take a better look at it. Roger gives Mark a victorious smile and the other blonde just mutters a ‘whatever’ before leaving in the kitchen’s direction.

“What was all the fuzz about when I just arrived? You all seemed to be ecstatic about something” he asks, giving the spider to Collins in order to get rid of his jacket and his guitar case. Maureen opens her mouth but is silenced by Joanne, who takes her by the waist and kisses her. Collins giggles before shaking his head, turning his attention back to their new acquired pet.

“Nothing important, just meet my soulmate and all that stuff… You think I can pet it?” he says as he takes off the cardboard that covers the bottle.

Roger shrugs “I guess so… Wait, _you did what_?!”

Thomas B. Collins even has the nerve to laugh at him, that motherfucker.

“Were you ever planning on telling me?” he says elbowing him and Collins smiles, probably the biggest smile Roger has ever seen on him.

“I’m telling you now, ain’t I?” he says. And so he does.

 

 

“What if they don’t like me?” asks Angel, looking at herself in the full-length mirror that’s on the living room for what must be the millionth time in the last fifteen minutes “Maybe I should change to something more…”

Mimi snorts, standing up from her place on one of the kitchen/living room stools where she was happily eating Thai food leftovers to go stand next to Angel.

“You look gorgeous, okay? Your make up is flawless, you’re wearing your lucky wig and I wish my butt looked as good as yours on that dress” she says, meeting Angel’s eyes so she can see this is serious “And apart from your looks, you’re sweet, charming and caring and if Collin’s friends don’t adore you as much as me and Collins do as soon as they see you, then they’re just plain stupid and you shouldn’t waste your time with them.”

Angels lets out a shaky breath and bites her lip before attempting to show a shy smile.

“You’re right, it’s just… He always talks about them, how much he loves them, what they mean to him, this is worst that meeting his parent.”

Mimi sneers, patting her in the back.

“Everything would be great, now go and use that patented Angel Dumott Schunard’s smile to charm the pants out of them” she adds, pushing Angel in the doors direction before she finds another reason to panic about.

“Are you sure you don’t want come? Collins said nobody would mind if I brought you.”

Mimi shakes her head “I promise Alice I’ll cover her shift today, maybe next time?”

“Okay, see you soon, take care.”

“Tell Collins I said hi!”

Angel nods and winks at her before leaving and when she’s sure Angel’s not coming back for sure, Mimi let’s herself fall into their ratty couch letting out a loud sigh. She doesn’t have to cover no one’s shift, but she certainly isn’t in the mood to spend the next hours watching a couple of happy people making eyes at each other. She’s not jealous or mad, and she loves Angel –it’s the closest thing to a family Mimi has, and Collins is a great guy, calm and clever with a great sense of humor but sometimes being around them it’s just… too much for her.

They make her wish for her own happy ending just the way she did when she was sixteen, too young and naïve to understand the terrible things that lay out there but it doesn’t feel right to hope for it, to expect a knight in shining armor reciting poetry at the window of her tower when she’s not that sweet innocent princess anymore. She also knows just because you have someone’s first words written in your skin it’s not a closed deal. They can still choose to say no, they can still decide to leave when they realize you’re not what they want, that you’re not enough to make them happy. And why would anyone choose to stay with someone like her? Someone who has been used and mistreated, tarnished, someone that can’t offer nothing more but her body.

Mimi closes her eyes tight trying not to cry.

She’s afraid her chance for a happy ending passed a long time ago and she didn’t even get a chance to wave goodbye at it.

When Angel gets back home that night, she finds Mimi sleeping on the couch, marks of tears still on her cheeks.

 

 

“What do you mean ‘it’s lost’?”

“It usually means you don’t know where something is” provides Maureen, standing in the door’s frame while licking a lollipop in a way that’s definitely not family friendly. Mark turns to look at her with an exasperated grimace.

“Thanks Maureen that was really useful” he says sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest. If his cheeks turn slightly pink when she does a particular thing with her tongue and the candy, no one comments on it “Why are you here anyway, don’t you have and apartment on your own now?”

“Joanne paid some guys to paint it and she says I keep distracting them so…”

 Mark face is a curious shade of red that has to do very little with arousal and more with how irritated he’s getting at every second. Roger considers telling him to sit and take a couple of deep breaths, but that would remind Mark that he’s still in the room and that he’s the main reason he got pissed off in the first place.

“What are you looking for anyway?” Maureen asks giving them her most innocent smile, her eyes focusing on Roger and okay, that was a low blow Maureen. He shouldn’t be that surprised, Maureen has never been one for fair play and since she can’t get her way making out with Mark anymore, she decides to make him focus his bad mood in other people. Vile.

“I sort of lost Moonlight somewhere in the apartment.”

“You left an unsupervised tarantula on the couch!”

“The phone was ringing!” Roger knows that’s a weak defense, Mark’s incredulous face tells him so.

“And since when do you care for the damn phone?”

“Oh, so you’re not pissed you’re just shitting your pants because you’re scared” Maureen smirks and Mark grunts.

“I’m done” he says, getting out of Roger’s room “I’m fucking done with you two.”

Both Roger and Maureen watch him leave in silence, wincing when the main door closes with too much force. They turn to look at each other and Roger shrugs, signaling the mess of clothes and magazines in his room to indicate her that even if he wants to go and calm down Mark a better way to do it would probably be finding the reason of why he got so mad in the first place. She sighs.

“Fine, I’ll go look for him, you find that thing.”

 

 

Mimi is lazily changing the channels on the old black and white TV on Angel’s room, lying on her friend’s bed with only a t-shirt and underwear when her phone starts ringing. She groans, considering letting it go to voice mail. But it’s not usual for her to get any calls and if it’s not from work (which she really hopes it’s not since it’s her free day), it must be Angel, so…

“Hello?”

“Hi dear, sorry to be a bother but could you do me a favor?”

“Does it involve getting my pants on?” Mimi asks, ‘because she’s really not looking for getting out of her apartment tonight. She still has half a pizza and a lot of crap reality shows to watch.

“I’m afraid so” Angel answers on the other side of the line and she must hear her groan because she adds “I’ll buy you a drink after?”

And with that, Mimi is convinced to go on a quest to retrieve Angel’s purse from her boyfriend’s apartment and take it back to her to the mall.

“I’d go myself but I just found the perfect jacket for Collins, you know I’ve been looking for a birthday present for him, and I had to fight this woman to keep it, if I leave it to go get my purse that witch will think she can have it and I can’t allow that to happen is a matter of principles, you know?”  Angel explained and Mimi rolled her eyes fondly as she looked for something not too dirty to wear on the outside.

She walks fast, hugging herself from the cold breeze as she approaches the address Angel sent her on a text message, an old brick building a couple of blocks from where they live. Nothing fancy, but definitely better that the one they live on. She enters, getting up the stairs two at a time and almost clashing in the second floor with a lanky blonde with glasses who carries a camera under his arm and seems too busy muttering something to himself.

By the time she reaches the fifth floor she’s a little out of breath, walking slowly down the hallway watching the numbers in front of the doors. She smiles in relief when she finds the right door and is about to knock when it opens, scaring her. The woman who opens seems surprised at well, looking at Mimi from head to toe before asking.

“Do you need something?”

“I’m looking for Collins?” she says though it comes out more like a question.

The girl looks over Mimi’s shoulder to the hallway and the stairs “He’s not home right now, do you want to leave a message for him or…?”

“Oh, I’m Angel’s friend, Mimi, she send me to see if she left her purse here? But if you want I can come back…”

“No it’s fine” she says, moving to the side to let Mimi in “I have to go out to… I have to go out, feel free to roam in and close the door when you leave, Collin’s room is at the end of the hallway if you want to start looking there.”

She smiles at Mimi before getting out, practically running at the stairs “Mark!” she calls on her way down and Mimi stands there for a moment, a ‘thanks’ frozen on the tip of her tongue. She allows herself inside the apartment, taking a look at nothing and everything on her way to the hallway. The living room is messy, mismatched furniture, dirty plates and books and magazines everywhere. There’s a table, also with mismatched chairs, all of its surface covered with mugs.

And Angel calls her a mess.

She finds her way to Collin’s room, a small place with a bed and a desk full of computer parts, almost every surface of the floor covered in books. But even in that mess, Angel’s silver glittery purse stands out from below the bed. Mimi sends her a text to inform her mission has been accomplished and she’ll be on the mall in twenty minutes. She tries to pull it but the strap must be hooked with something ‘because it refuses to leave its place in the ground. Mimi gets on her knees to find the source of the problem when she hears a gasp behind her. She turns around, her heart beating fast out of fear and her brown eyes meet with the blue ones of the boy on the doorframe. He’s tall, with shaggy long blonde hair and ripped jeans, very nice to look at if you’re into that punk-rock trend kind of guy.

Mimi definitely is now.

She opens her mouth to explain, but at that moment his eyes widen.

“Don’t move” he says, moving slowly in her direction “You have moonlight in your hair.”

Mimi’s eyes widen too, and her heart starts beating frenetically again, this time for a completely different reason. It’s him, she thinks. Holy shit, it’s him and he’s perfect, he’s… She feels something tickling over her shoulder and she turns her head slightly to see a spider –a fucking tarantula for fuck’s sake- walking over her. She feels herself getting dizzy, unable to move.

“Fuck” she says “I’m going to die.”

His eyes widen again, just the moment he’s taking the tarantula out of her.

“Oh crap, it bite me” he says, letting it fall to the floor. Mimi stands up, getting up into the bed in a blink of an eye to avoid the spider, who runs under the bed. The guy gets on his knees and takes a look at the floor for a moment, looking lost “It escaped again, Mark is going to murder me” he finally says. Mimi keeps her eyes on him all the time, the way he scrunches his nose and sighs, the way his blonde hair falls over his eyes when he gets up again and how he pushes it to the side with long, slender fingers.

“You” says Mimi, a smile spreading on her lips.

“Me?” asks the guy and then the weight of the last moments seems to land on him, his eyes focusing intently on her “You!” he says, and his smile is the most beautiful thing Mimi has ever seen.

“Me” she agrees.

It’s not exactly romantic or poetic, yet Mimi thinks, it still feels perfect.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So... That was it, I guess. There's probably some mistakes I forgot to correct even though I read this like five times after I finished it. Feel free to tell me of the ones you saw -as long as you do it nicely I won't bite you (or at least not too hard).


End file.
